Data Mining is it becoming a problem?

Recently we all know about the Cash Shop that is on the PTR & such.

But it got me to think with the way Data Mining is it litterally finds anything that Blizzard puts out there for testing even if it isn't meant to go live, but just something they wanna test for the future or for other projects **wink wink **nudge nudge.

Like Defense of the Ale House or Stormrgarde Scernario, also If it wasn't for data mining of the potion this whole WoW is going F2P or P2W wouldn't be as big as it is now. Maybe when it actually showed up on the PTR than people would maybe understand what the potion was actually for (China). Its like the internet loves to blow things out of preportions & makes things sound worse than they truly are as ya from what I seen on the PTR the Shop was basically a port to the Blizzard Store.

But the main point for this thread is "What do you think Data Mining does for you or for the game in general?". Do you think it causes problem for Blizzard when they wanna try new things even if they are never intended to go live or using items as bait to see how the community reacts ??

Post your thoughts (Be Civil or Mods will have a good time).

Edit: I don't care about Spoilers, its more about when something is Data mined, people blow up like its the end of the world or when something doesn't make live people they wonder why it was there in the first place.

I think it's a terrible thing. It really destroys the sense of discovery and adventure in the game, when everybody is expecting you to know every fight before the content is even live and you already know all the gear you're going to have to get, you just make a little shopping list and go about getting it.

I think that's actually a lot of what's killed the "magic" of the game. Theorycrafting has essentially done the same thing. It kind of feels like you're following a to-do list rather than discovering things in an adventurous world of fantasy.

The combination of theorycrafting, data-mining, and Blizzard's choice to design the game around "get gear get gear get gear raid raid raid raid get gear get gear get gear", has really sucked a lot of the magic out of things, at least it has for me. It started to become really evident towards the end of Cataclysm and hasn't really gotten any better since. I hope it's something they work on changing moving forward.

Data Mining is what ruins the games feeling of magic and discovery, not LFR or LFD or any other crap that people tell you. Anything you want to know about what's coming within the next 3 months of content is already freely available. A small portion of fun items got added in 5.3 that wasn't documented (a la Geyser Gun in ToT), having that again was really awesome. It's sad to say that the effect won't ever go away though because it's part of the game community now.

I think it's a terrible thing. It really destroys the sense of discovery and adventure in the game, when everybody is expecting you to know every fight before the content is even live and you already know all the gear you're going to have to get, you just make a little shopping list and go about getting it.

I think that's actually a lot of what's killed the "magic" of the game. Theorycrafting has essentially done the same thing. It kind of feels like you're following a to-do list rather than discovering things in an adventurous world of fantasy.

The combination of theorycrafting, data-mining, and Blizzard's choice to design the game around "get gear get gear get gear raid raid raid raid get gear get gear get gear", has really sucked a lot of the magic out of things, at least it has for me. It started to become really evident towards the end of Cataclysm and hasn't really gotten any better since. I hope it's something they work on changing moving forward.

It's kinda been really evident since the game came out, but hey, I've been in a theorycrafting min/maxing guild since day 1.

Maybe when it actually showed up on the PTR than people would maybe understand what the potion was actually for (China).

Uh, no. Seeing it later doesn't magically change the meaning. For a lot of people this expansion of the Cash Shop is a large warning sign. Seeing it before Blizzard has a chance to give it PR spin is probably the most honest way to interpret it.

Originally Posted by Arbsbear

Its like the internet loves to blow things out of preportions & makes things sound worse than they truly are

This is just an opinion about how you don't have a problem with a cash shop in a subscription game. Kinda trying to vaguely slip it in a post about other things. People are free to feel strongly negative about the cash shop as they choose. Data Mining doesn't change this.

Originally Posted by Arbsbear

But the main point for this thread is "What do you think Data Mining does for you or for the game in general?". Do you think it causes problem for Blizzard when they wanna try new things even if they are never intended to go live or using items as bait to see how the community reacts ??

It doesn't seem like this is your main point, otherwise you wouldn't have said everything about the data mined cash shop..but ok...I'll bite.

I personally feel that data mining has taken away a lot of excitement we used to get when new things came. While I don't agree how you apply this to the cash shop, I do agree on how it negatively impacts the game development as a whole. Knowing too much information out of context, then being able to talk about it in depth without any information can be detrimental.

Now arguably this only affects a very small portion of players (forum posters) so in the end it's small beans. Unfortunately bad business practices in the game industry has forced consumers into needing to delve into leaked and mined information in order to try and make appropriate decisions about their games.

Part of me misses (nostalgia) the days where we just get piles of awesome dropped in our laps, but that's just not how communication with MMOs works anymore. So my overall view is that it just is what it is...a natural part of where we are in the current landscape of the industry.

It's kinda been really evident since the game came out, but hey, I've been in a theorycrafting min/maxing guild since day 1.

Well I think what happened in Cataclysm has a lot to do with the mentality that sprouted out of how difficult the heroics were at the beginning. You couldn't really use trial and error any more to figure things out because you were rarely playing with friends or guildmates, and due to the changes in Blizzard's design philosophy, nobody really much cared about doing a dungeon for the adventure or thrill of it (I got kicked my very first time ever in a Cata dungeon [BRC] because I asked if we could wait a second so I can read my quest text), it was just "Shut the hell up all of you stupid noobs I want gear...get gear get gear get gear get gear..." so you pretty much just had to use encounter guides and theorycrafting materials, lest you get screamed down and kicked from your group. It pretty much did become a necessity, unfortunately. It didn't change in MoP like I had hoped it would.

I think it's a terrible thing. It really destroys the sense of discovery and adventure in the game, when everybody is expecting you to know every fight before the content is even live and you already know all the gear you're going to have to get, you just make a little shopping list and go about getting it.

I think that's actually a lot of what's killed the "magic" of the game. Theorycrafting has essentially done the same thing. It kind of feels like you're following a to-do list rather than discovering things in an adventurous world of fantasy.

The combination of theorycrafting, data-mining, and Blizzard's choice to design the game around "get gear get gear get gear raid raid raid raid get gear get gear get gear", has really sucked a lot of the magic out of things, at least it has for me. It started to become really evident towards the end of Cataclysm and hasn't really gotten any better since. I hope it's something they work on changing moving forward.

Wow, I was thinking almost exactly the same thing. People don't really play games anymore, they play some meta-version of games. They don't go and discover and figure things out on their own anymore, they go to a robot to tell them what gear to get and how to gem and reforge it. They don't have the fun of figuring out how to beat a boss, they go watch a video and perform the dance moves exactly as they see it.

THAT is a major reason why some people don't find the game fun anymore, because they don't actually play the game, they just follow what someone else told them what to do. Of course you don't feel like you don't have options, because you're putting blinders on and only doing what someone else has already figured out for you.

Either it stays under an NDA and only certain people have access to that information (which creates unfairness for guilds unable to get access to the information) or it doesn't have an NDA and the content is spoiled, but fairly distributed. Blizzard are first and foremost about fair play in their games, thus data mining is allowed (with exceptions like alpha builds of new expansions, etc). Blizzard also heavily rely on feedback (from all spectrums of the game, but let's be fair they listen to the top players more than others) so that information being available to everyone makes it easier for Blizzard to get feedback which is relevant to all spectrums of the game.

Data mining by MMO-C is a really healthy thing, but as others in this thread have pointed out, it takes away from the mystery of what the next patch will come. I suppose the people that never visit MMO-C are the lucky ones in some ways, as patch day is always a Christmas morning to them. I wouldn't say it's a big problem though, there's plenty of good things to come from data mining. The only problems I ever see from it is how the community interprets what they see, as if it is always final or whatever.

The people of MMO-Champion data mine to keep putting up content on their website. And oddly enough, a big piece of the WoW community doesn't get their WoW news and updates from any WoW site; they get their updates directly from MMO-Champion.

I don't think Blizzard "plants" anything in the game files to specifically promote the game as "bait". While they know that a lot of it will be data-mined, and put on MMO-C, this is not bait to get players back to the game at all. MMO-C is doing their job, and Blizzard is doing theirs. Blizzard could put a lot of future content into their patches and what now, but they are solely aware of data mining, so a lot of it has to stay out oddly enough. Luckily, though, I suspect Blizzard has a few internal realms (not ptr, but similar) to test a lot of this kind of things with their Quality Assurance team with ptr changes, and future patches.

What does Data Mining do for me or the game in general? I think when mmo-champion does it, it allows them to establish a community of players that will visit mmo champion once a week, once a day, or even more frequent like myself. I think mmo-c's data mining also helps Blizzard employees (non-dev members) know about the changes in their own game, as that kind of communication would be a LOT to accumulate, and to always keep reported. It'd be an overwhelming job for one employee, or even a group of employees to do, as the PTR changes rapidly, and the game update communications might not always be made from day-to-day internally. Ever notice how not everything reaches the Patch notes for each WoW patch? It's because it's just so much information, and the article is written by a community rep that goes around asking everybody what they've done, and of course some changes slip through the cracks.

It's only terrible for people who take it too seriously, or don't understand it.

The reality is that there are too many people who just want to be angry about something with the game and datamining does nothing but get them worked into a frenzy about crap which may or may not become a reality.

Wow, I was thinking almost exactly the same thing. People don't really play games anymore, they play some meta-version of games. They don't go and discover and figure things out on their own anymore, they go to a robot to tell them what gear to get and how to gem and reforge it. They don't have the fun of figuring out how to beat a boss, they go watch a video and perform the dance moves exactly as they see it.

THAT is a major reason why some people don't find the game fun anymore, because they don't actually play the game, they just follow what someone else told them what to do. Of course you don't feel like you don't have options, because you're putting blinders on and only doing what someone else has already figured out for you.

Exactly. I think a lot of what people blame on LFD/LFR is actually caused because of the more widespread availability of guides, PTR information, data-mined stuff...Which is ironic because the people who hate on LFD/LFR so much are usually the same ones demanding you know everything in advance, so they're kind of their own worst enemies.

Indeed it ruins the discovery and magic of the game by A LOT. Knowing everything in advance just ruins the fun. Imagine there wouldn't be anything like watch videos before raiding and just copy tactics to win... But actually spend hours learning the debuffs, how to avoid stuff etc etc to create a tactic that lets you beat the boss, would be so much fun in my opinion and would take much longer for bosses to die, resulting in long raiding tiers without getting bored fast as we do today pretty much.

As much as people including me are hungry for future information about the game and we can't wait to know stuff, I think it's way better if we wouldn't be able to Data mine anything and be a lot more surprised when things come out to learn about them more. That way the community might have been improved as well... People would discuss more about what they found out, share those findings with each other and exploring would be much more fun.

If blizz didnt want there shit data mined then they can test shit in house and keep it underwraps its not that hard

Has the ending cinematic been data mined NOPE

Whats the problem? If you wanna avoid spoilers then hide under a rock and dont visit websites like this.

I dont see what the problem is blizz knows as soon as they put files into the ptr the data miners will find it and i believe they dont care about that otherwise they would hold off putting those files in till the patch hits live

Data mining obviously provides the source of the upset, but I don't think it's the problem.

People are going to blow things out of proportion regardless of when and how they discovered it; it's the nature of reactions over the internet. ( FWIW, it's been said both in the news and in many of the forum posts, even before Blizzard officially clarified, that the feature was probably going to be for Asian markets. I know I posted myself in several threads saying it was for Korea, since that's specifically what I was told when I was told about the in-game store before it was even announced. Did it make a difference? no.)

Players should also know by now to take datamined stuff with a grain of salt. There is a reason why places like MMOC and wowhead and other sites that post datamined stuff have warnings all over the place about taking it at face value.

I think it's fine. It leads to a bunch of speculation yet nothing can be taken as concrete as the context of data mined out is missing. The PTR however, that's a whole different kettle of fish, and I think it does WoW the most damage out of every potential factor out there.

I think it's a terrible thing. It really destroys the sense of discovery and adventure in the game, when everybody is expecting you to know every fight before the content is even live and you already know all the gear you're going to have to get, you just make a little shopping list and go about getting it.

I think that's actually a lot of what's killed the "magic" of the game. Theorycrafting has essentially done the same thing. It kind of feels like you're following a to-do list rather than discovering things in an adventurous world of fantasy.

The combination of theorycrafting, data-mining, and Blizzard's choice to design the game around "get gear get gear get gear raid raid raid raid get gear get gear get gear", has really sucked a lot of the magic out of things, at least it has for me. It started to become really evident towards the end of Cataclysm and hasn't really gotten any better since. I hope it's something they work on changing moving forward.

Just about this. Datamining and the PTR. While it's cool to know things ahead of time and I really don't mind spoilers, it does break the sense of discovery and wonder people are supposed to have when there are videos and annotated maps and strategies ready even before the patch is released.

See that green flowery circle over there? Stand on it. No, don't run away from it! C'mon!